Jack Be Nimble
by algie888
Summary: Jack be nimble. Jack be quick. Jack jump over the candle stick. Jack jumped high. Jack jumped low. Jack jumped over and burnt his toe. DRABBLE


**A/N: So, Jackson Rippner. Can't say you didn't see this obsession coming - look at my track record! Just a short drabble on everyone's favourite manager. **

* * *

Jackson Rippner. Gregory Anderson. Jack Holloway. Frank Updike. Allan Dale. Robin Turing. Toby Mattinson. Jennifer Featherstone. So many more. So many names and alibis that had been so useful throughout the years.

He had to be fast. That was obvious. He needed to jump out of the frying pan, into the fire, and bask in the wondrous feeling of the flames licking at skin. He loved the power, the feeling of the Victim melting under his hand like candle wax under his intense heat.

He picked the case of Lisa Reisert for one reason: her spunk. Her kick. Her personality. The others were all far too dull - a business tycoon that was on the radar, a mafioso with far too big a reputation, and a femme fatale that he had absolutely no intention of ever meeting again, not after last time.

Lisa Reisert was everything that he wanted to be. Not that he wanted to be a hotel manager with divorced parents and a habit of making scrambled eggs at three in the morning when the nightmares of the parking lot came back.

But he had wanted, as a child, to be independent, just like Lisa Reisert. She needed no one in her life, no one to just double check if she was fine, no one to worry over her. He liked that. The fact that Lisa Reisert had such a fiery personality, the fact she fought back, the fact she didn't care he was scary was just a bonus. A delicious, wonderful bonus.

She had asked him his name. The other Victims did not typically do that, they didn't typically ask him anything. There were two types of Victims - type a) 'I-don't-want-to-die-I'm-so-sorry', and type b) 'bedroom-is-only-a-taxi-ride-away'. Looking at Lisa Reisert, he couldn't tell which one she was.

When he told her his name, she had paled and laughed for him. For him, not at him. She found it amusing that all his years of being bullied and hiding behind potted plants. Jackson Rippner. Jack Rippner. Jack the Ripper. His parents were idiots, he told them so on their deathbed. It hadn't been messy - a drip of bleach into his mother's botox, a strategic golf club to his father's head when daddy dearest was at a tournament (blamed it on the caddy, not too difficult). But, before he had killed them, he had thanked them. He had thanked them honestly, kindly, and from the bottom of his black heart.

"I've been wondering," he had whispered, watching his mother's eyes droop. "Does the name make a man? Does it?" His father stared at him with wild eyes, flailing on the ground. "Of course, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but does it really? Because I don't think so. The name makes the man. And thank you so very much for my name. It's been brilliant."

Back to Lisa. He was getting off track.

Lisa was... an enigma, to say the least. She puzzled him, and he delighted in solving her mystery. No one, no one, ever fought back. But she did. The weak, lonely, fragile girl happened to be the only one who was brave enough to try and stop him. Nearly did, too. The pen was a nice touch, he had to admit, but a tad bit too messy. His vocal chords were like spaghetti now, and breathing got difficult after a while, but he was still up and at 'em.

She reminded him of his first mark, also a girl, Emily Drake. Emily had been difficult to break too, but in the end he had succeeded. She was a tough one, never letting him get close to her. But he finally gave into temptation after an hour and a half of skirting, and pointed the gun to her head. Emily did what he wanted, but by then he was too irked, too irate to care.

Emily never woke up from the morphine drip. He was the last thing those brown eyes saw.

Poetic justice, don't you think? He certainly did. Lisa didn't, though. They never agreed on anything. The fact that he nearly killed her father and that she shoved a stiletto into his thight definitely put a damper on their relationship.

Jack leant back in his seat, the Zippo lighter thunking against the metal as he flicked his hands expertly. The fire burnt bright in the darkness, illuminating his face for a split second against the dead of night. He glanced out of the window expectantly, toying with the light again. It flickered like lightning, his surroundings shown in short bursts of light. A house, a garden, a window, a girl.

Jack grinned. _Lisa_. **  
**


End file.
